Meet the Farmer: Rodolfo Ruffatti

Coffee: Buying, selling, drying, processing, sorting, grading, analysing. Even teaching farmers and supporting them. Doing even one of these things is an incredible amount of work. It’s hard to believe we are talking about just one person, doingall of this, single-handedly.

Oh but we are talking about just one person. And that man is the hero we need! Rodolfo Batlle Ruffatti. You may have heard of him before -- we ourselves even collaborated in the past with Rodolfo and a friend of his, Omar, where we helped to provide coffee growers the opportunity for organic coffee farming in Colombia, and we'd like to revisit that one day.

But first, let's delve deeper into the life of Rodolfo. Originally born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, Rodolfo grew up in a family who has been reliant on and dedicated to the coffee industry since the mid-19th century. The Ruffatti family has been cultivating coffee for well over a hundred years, and are known worldwide for their coffee and humanitarian efforts, so if you haven’t heard of them before – shame on you! Best thing you can do now is try his coffee!

As a youngster, Rodolfo originally started to work, as many do in the coffee producing community, at his family’s own mill, buying fresh cherries, picking them up and bringing them to the mill. However, when puberty hit hard (as it does), we learned that Rodolfo decided, like most teenagers, to master his own destiny, and became empassioned with photography. Nevertheless, after time he realised that his soul still belonged to his origins in coffee. That marked his eventual return his roots – ah, the world of coffee, my old friend. Rodolfo began running his own farm in the 70’s.

Today, you will still find Rodolfo hanging about on coffee farms half the time of the year, like “La Finca El Salvador”, to process his dad’s or friend’s coffees. But the other half, Rodolfo is doing what he is really known for; being a green specialty coffee importer. Rodolfo works directly with farmers themselves, meaning that he’s them by buying and selling their stories and coffees to roasteries worldwide. For him, it’s all about the coffee farmer. His mission is to go out and teach farmers how to cultivate, process and dry their varieties in coffee and above all, empower them to be the creators of amazing tasting coffee.

La Finca El Salvador, located in Cordillera del Balsamo, brings us a Bourbon Rojo variety with a semi-washed process. With a rich and strong body as well as nuances of chocolate and roasted almonds coming through, every sip of coffee brings you to the lively streets of El Salvador. Perfect to roast with a Bonaverde Berlin.

So thank you, Rodolfo. You are doing a great thing in this world! He really leading the charge when we talk about the new post-3rd Wave of Coffee.

Or for those of you who are curious in our coffee varieties, but don't know where to even start, we at Bonaverde always recommend trying our Coffee as a Service with multi-bean PayGo plan -- it means you not only get to try Rufatti, but also explore all of our other top-notch speciality grade coffees and discover your own favourite!